THE TIME OF PARTING

The time of parting.

Now is the time to leave the hills

and the summer shades of woodland

where we have lived by shadows,

searching for rare gods

on paths of our own making.

We are no longer bound there

to the earth that holds our dead.

Now is the time of parting

from that half-imagined land

where the very act of speaking

places us apart –

we, the outsiders,

looking in upon a world

where we do not belong

Returning to the garden,

a place of our creation,

we join with Nature

in a solemn contract,

feeling, perhaps,

that for a moment only,

she will accede to our control.

Here there is ground to dig –

sweet soil to feel

that’s fresh and full of life,

whose pure and rich potential

we crumble in our hands.

See! Here there will be beans,

here lettuces and chard,

here garlic,

pungent and lavish-tasting

to mix with fragrant herbs.

In a garden Nature’s vastness is condensed:

feckless roses climb,

but grasped by honeysuckle’s pointing fingers,

and only with our blessing will the foxgloves

exceed their given space.

In this domain the wind is gentler

than when it shakes the beeches

or blows the sea to waves,

and bees and birds and dragonflies

find pleasure in the calm. 

But we make a garden only where we dwell

and, in dwelling, must relinquish

the very freedom that we crave.

Still we hear the echo of the forest,

bringing memories of stranger things

that live in other worlds,

and though the garden’s sanctuary

is made for blessed rest,

still we long for woodlands and for hills.